90 MISS EMBLETOIir ON CERATAPUIS LATANI.i;. 



Ceraiaphis latanicB, a peculiar Aphid. By Alice L. Embleton, 

 B.Sc. ; 1851 Exhibition Science Eesearch Scholar. (Com- 

 municated by Prof. a. B. Howes, D.Sc, LL.D., E.E.S., 

 See.L.S.) 



[Eead 19th February, 1903.] 



(Plate 12.) 



In the autumn of 1901, Mr. Lamb, of Cambridge, noticed this 

 insect on various orchids in one of the tropical houses at the 

 University Botanic Grarden. Through the kindness of Dr. D. 

 Sharp it was brought to my notice, aud this paper is the result 

 of some investigations carried out with, his assistance. I wish 

 here to express my sincere thanks to him for all the valuable 

 help he has given me. 



The chief interest in this creature centres round its life- 

 history, which exhibits some remarkable biological features, very 

 little understood up to the present. Many notes have been 

 written on the insect, but its ext'raordinary resemblance to 

 Coccidcs and Aleurodidce has given rise to great confusion. It 

 has been described as belonging to three distinct families of 

 Hhynchota, and even in a recent number of the ' Grardeners' 

 Chronicle' it is still referred to the family CoccidcB, to which it 

 certainly does not belong. At present in entomological litera- 

 ture it stands in three different genera, belonging to two different 

 classes of insects. Seeing that so much, confusion surrounds the 

 nomenclature and taxonomy, it will perhaps be well, before 

 discussing the jjoints of biological interest, to give a brief 

 historical account of the literature. 



HiSTOEV. 



. This insect was first described by Boisduval in 1867 *, under 

 the provisional name of Coccus ? latanice. He found it in Paris 

 on various palms belonging to the genus Latania ; but as it is 

 only to be found in hothouses, lie concludes it must be of exotic 

 origin, for it is killed by putting the host-plants into the open 

 air. He is uncertain as to what family o£ insects it belongs, but 

 suggests that when the male is known it will probably become 

 the type of a new genus ; provisionally he places it in his genus 



* Ent. Horticle, p. 3.55, figs. 49, 50. 



